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Hirose Koichi stepped into the café with a bright smile that only grew brighter when he saw a certain mangaka sitting on a table next to the windows. Naturally, he approached him. The boy had gone to the café to buy coffee powder, since they had ran out of it at home —his mum and him, especially, enjoyed having a cup of coffee during breakfast to start off the day in the right way. However, Koichi had all the time in the world to do that. He was happy for having bumped onto him, he had not seen him in quite some time.
"Rohan-sensei, hi!" the boy greeted him waving his hand and walking towards the table the older one was sitting in. Only then did he notice that Rohan was not alone.
"Good morning, Koichi-kun" the mangaka greeted him too, taking a sip of his cup of coffee and only looking at him for a split second. Then, he took a bite of the chocolate cornet he had on a small plate.
"Josuke?! What are you doing here?" Koichi asked astonished, but maybe not as astonished as his friend was for having ran into each other on the same place at the same time. Josuke even felt as if he had been caught infraganti, even though he was not doing anything wrong or inappropiate.
"Well, I... I j-just wanted Rohan-sensei to... to help me with..." Josuke stuttered awkwardly, as a slight shade of pink coloured his cheeks. Koichi looked at him tenderly but feeling a little bit of cringe at the same. It was pretty obvious he was lying, and watching him trying to come up with an excuse was awful. Besides, Koichi did not know (nor did he understand) why Josuke felt the need to lie to him.
"Isn't that obvious, Koichi-kun?" Rohan interrupted them, arms crossed over his chest. "We're on a date."
"Oh... Really?" he asked Josuke this time.
"Uhm... Yeah" Josuke replied with a sigh and a silly smile.
"That's kinda odd..." Koichi mumbled to himself, pressing his lips together. Fourtunately, nor Rohan or Josuke seemed to hear that. It felt as if they were trying to pull a prank on him, but there was not a single hint of sarcasm in Rohan's tone of voice and the exaggerated blush spread all over Josuke's face and ears were more than enough to let him know that they were serious and probably they just did not want anyone to find out. "Oh, well... I don't wanna be third-wheeling so... Have a nice date, see ya!"
"Thanks, Koichi-kun. We should hang out another day" Rohan replied with a sweet and discreet smile.
"S-see ya" Josuke stuttered again, awkwardly smiling. Then he looked down to his coffee mug, as he filled his mouth with one of the chocolate chip filled muffins he had on a small plate besides Rohan's.
"Is there something wrong?" Rohan monotonously asked, which made Josuke flinch on his seat as it took him out of his thoughts.
"No, it's just..." Josuke licked his lips nervously, not capable of looking at his partner directly in the eye.
"Was it wrong that I told Koichi we were on a date?" The mangaka asked again.
"No, it's not that! It's just... I thought that you wanted to keep this..." he said while pointing at him and then pointing at Rohan a couple of times. "... a secret."
"Why would I want that?"
"Maybe you wanted some privacy... I dunno..."
"Josuke, I would not have agreed on going on a date with you if I had wanted to keep this a secret" Rohan clarified. "I'm not ashamed of going out with you and I'm not ashamed of you."
"You're not?" Josuke asked amazed, with eyes as bright as a puppy's. The silly smile on his face did not showcased awkwardness anymore. It was kind of... cute. Rohan shook his head and gave him a sideways smile. He was putting a lot of effort into not smiling like an idiot, just like the boy seated in front of him was.
After the coffee and bread they had earlier, they went out for a silent walk through the streets of Morioh, until they arrived at one of the biggest parks in town.
If they did not talk much at the café, they surely were not talking at that moment. Josuke was way too nervous to say any single word out loud, while Rohan was just a man of few words. So yeah. It was a pretty quiet date, way too quiet for poor Josuke's liking. Although, Rohan did not have any complain. As surprising as it was, he felt at ease while spending time with that brat with the old-fashioned hair style. Like, who even had a pompadour anymore? Not even the delinquents had that hairstyle anymore.
Anyways. They arrived at the park and sat on a bench without saying anything. Out of habit, Rohan grabbed the sketchbook he carried around, everywhere, with a strap on the spine of the sketchbook so he could hang it from his shoulder. And so, he started sketching anything that crossed his sight. Trees, kids chasing each other, maybe some couple tht was strolling around, or an elder slowly walking their dog.
Sooner than later, reality slapped Rohan in the face with a white glove. That was not a date, at all. All the quick sketching he was doing at that moment was something he was used to do. It was part of his daily routine. The only difference was that Josuke was sitting right beside him, playing with his fingers, probably thinking about how to start a conversation with him. And even it was pretty clear already that that date had been Josuke's idea, Rohan knew he was being a little bit unfair with boy by doing something that was not out of the usual for his normal weekend days. Even though it was something he enjoyed to do, Rohan knew that might not be the case for Josuke.
Maybe the fact that they had already spend some time together had something to do with it. After what had happened with Fungami Yuya and his Highway Star, Josuke had insisted a lot on looking after Rohan for a few weeks, until the mangaka made it verbally clear that he was fully healed from any injured he might have suffered at the Nitsumori tunnel. However, they both ended up bonding a lot... in a way that none of them could really explain. That was the reason why Josuke would end up at the door of Rohan's remodeled house any time he had some spare time. The most surprising thing was that Rohan seemed a little bit too excited anytime he let the teen come inside his house.
Quickly they found out they both were interested in fashion and videogames. And, even if Josuke had never showed any interest in manga —at least not like Koichi or Hazamada-san—, when he showed interest in Rohan's manga, the older could not avoid feeling grateful because he wanted to see his work. In less than two weeks, Josuke was already up to date with all of the published volumes. He even told Rohan he could not wait to read the next chapter.
All the dice game thing and Rohan's house being burned down had been forgiven, although not with explicit words, but now they could say they were friends... more or less. Well, they were friends until Josuke nervously asked Rohan out on a date. To his surprise, the mangaka agreed. And that was how they ended up on that awkwardly quiet situation. Of course, Rohan had already decided what to do to fix it.
"Tag, you're it!" Rohan exclaimed after leaving his sketchbook and pencil on the bench, before slightly pushing Josuke with both hands. Then, he started running.
"What...?" Josuke stuttered in a low voice, watching Rohan running away from him as he was still on that bench, awfully confused. "Hey, come back!"
"Catch me if you can!" Rohan shouted out with a smile, running as fast as he could.
Not only was Josuke younger than him, but more athletic too. So, in a matter of seconds, he was running right behind him. A beautiful and birght smile on his face, as he extended his arm to catch him.
Josuke ran faster and he grabbed Rohan by the arm. Unfourtunately for both of them, this caused the mangaka to stumble on his own feet, falling to the ground with the younger and rolling down a small hill. When they reached the base of said hill, Josuke ended up lying face up with Rohan on top of him. They both chuckled at the beginning, but the longer they stared at each other, the less they could hold their laughter. Once they were more relieved, their eyes met and the older one had to take a moment to appreciate how handsome that teen was.
Dark hair styled in that pretentious and almost old-fashioned pompadour, nice eyebrows, a pretty cute pink or maybe peachy undertone on his fair skin, bright blue eyes radiating innocence through that discret gradient of colours, and plump rosy lips. Surely, Rohan could not stop staring at them ever since they met at that café.
On the other hand, Josuke was dying out of nervousness for having those penetrating emerald eyes looking at him carefully, maybe way too carefully, as if he wanted to read his thoughts and most dark secrets. And, of course, that something Rohan could do at any moment if he tried to use Heaven's Door to read him like an open book, but it seemed like sensei wanted to do that on his own. Josuke's thoughts were interrupted when Rohan placed a hand on his cheek, gently caressing the corner of his lips with the thumb.
"D-do I have something on my face?" Josuke asked, not knowing what the other one was planning to do and that had him feeling way more nervous than he already was. The position they were in was already too embarassing and intimate, the boy felt as if his heart was going to explode at any moment just at the mere touch of Rohan's touch and that intense green look he was dedicating him. Rohan just shook his head 'no' to answer his question and leaned over slowly.
The mangaka inhaled some air before, finally, placing his lips over the boy's, not even touching at the beginning, but slightly brushing them over his. Soon, he was caressing his lips with his own. With soft movements and making Josuke sigh, since he could not even move for a second, as it all was surprising.
Was he...?
Was Rohan-sensei actually kissing him?
Kissing him?
On the first date?
Once the younger came back to reality, he answered the kiss, tenderly moving his lips against Rohan's, closing his eyes as well. His hands rested carefully over Rohans tight waist. He even felt that he needed to ask for permission to do that, although he had no ill intentions with that, but that was how nervous he felt.
"Oh, God..." Josuke mumbled when Rohan stopped kissing him. He said it without thinking, but Rohan let out a giggle either way.
Josuke could still feel the warmth of lips and the flavour of his lip balm. Strawberry. His heart was beating fast. He could hear how his heart rythmically beated right into his ear. With a not so awkward or insufferable knot in his throat making it difficult to talk. He also felt how the blood ran up and accumulated in his cheeks and ears, showing as a noticeable blush.
"You should be grateful the Great Kishibe Rohan just gave you your first kiss" The older one showed off.
"That-that wasn't my...!" Josuke started, but was soon interrupted by Rohan.
"It's pretty obvious it was" His right hand was resting over his chest, while he rested part of his weight over the left one.
"Well... Either way it was amazing" Josuke flattered him.
"Of course it was" Rohan cleared the obvious, once again.
"Hey, uhm... I dunno what we should do now... I don't even know what you're supposed to do on a first date."
"Well..." Rohan thought about it for a brief moment, licking his lips, still with a tingling sensation on them for having kissing the younger. "You do anything you need to decide if you wanna have a second date or not."
"So... Will we have a second one?"
"Of course" Rohan replied.